Letter to the Editor highlighting important facts pertaining to the Indian context.

1. LETTER TO EDITOR
OSCE as a Summative Assessment Tool for Undergraduate Students
of Surgery—Our Experience
Ketan Vagholkar1
Received: 22 June 2018 /Accepted: 19 October 2018
# Association of Surgeons of India 2018
Dear Editor,
I read the article BOSCE as a summative assessment tool for
undergraduate students of surgery—our experience^ pub-
lished in the December 2017 issue of the Indian Journal of
Surgery [1]. The article gives a good insight into the role of
objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) evaluation
in medical education. However, I would like to highlight a few
pertinent points, which are missing in the article but are quite
relevant to the Indian context.
Private medical colleges admitting more than 100 students
annually constitute a major portion of the medical education
system in our country. Majority of these colleges lack ade-
quate patient numbers. Objective structured clinical examina-
tion is very pertinent in the evaluation and conduct of exams in
these colleges. The traditional system of Blong case^ and
Bshort case^ has become obsolete due to the fact that scarcity
of patients for examining large numbers of students renders
the examination a farce. Patients become hostile and the stu-
dents are well aware of the cases kept for the exam. Therefore,
the testing efficacy of the exam is far below standards [2].
Objective structured clinical examination is an excellent solu-
tion to this issue. The authors describe having involved 5
faculty members in the study. Most of objective structured
clinical examination stations require 2 faculty members to
ensure fairness in the evaluation. Adequate faculty is therefore
essential for the conduct of objective structured clinical exam-
ination exams [3]. Hence the faculty needs to be trained in this
technique. They also need to be adequately sensitized towards
this pattern of examination as there is excessive resistance
from most of the faculty members especially those who have
not gone through the objective structured clinical examination
evaluation themselves.
Reproducibility is superior to the traditional pattern of ex-
aminations [2, 3]. Assessment is more critical and objective.
Both a wide spectrum of curriculum as well as multiple facets
of the candidate can be assessed. This pattern has been
adopted and accepted in the western world in exams like the
United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) in
the USA and the Fellowship examinations in the UK. Their
experience has been promising thereby rendering objective
structured clinical examination as the standard of testing in
those countries. Objective structured clinical examination
can certainly enable us to improvise our assessment of both
undergraduate and post-graduate students cutting across all
specialities. The Medical Council of India should take up this
matter seriously and try developing a lucid practice algorithm
for objective structured clinical examination exams which will
enable us to ensure uniform standards of assessment in med-
ical education all over our country [2].
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.
References
1. Joshi MK, Srivastava AK, Ranjan P, Singhal M, Dhar A, Chumber S,
Parshad R, Seenu V (2017) OSCE as a summative assessment tool
for undergraduate students of surgery_ our experience. Indian J Surg
79:534–538
2. Vagholkar K, Doulatramani M (2015) Objective structured clinical
examination (OSCE): an excellent tool for testing clinical competence.
Journal of Medical Science and Clinical Research 3(5):5579-5585
3. Turner JL, Dankoski ME (2008) Objective structured clinical exams:
acritical review. Fam Med 40:574–578
* Ketan Vagholkar
kvagholkar@yahoo.com
1
Department of Surgery, Dr. D. Y. Patil Medical College, Navi
Mumbai, Maharashtra State 400706, India
Indian Journal of Surgery
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12262-018-1827-z